Before leaving Capitol Hill for their current vacation, Congress members finally passed a spending bill last week that sailed through the House and the Senate, but Republicans have been quiet about the $1.1 trillion appropriations package that does nothing to repeal, block or defund President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act.

Ted Cruz and the tea party totally failed in their attempts to demolish Obamacare by sponsoring more than 40 votes to repeal it, shutting down the government in October with Republican-driven extortion attempts and Cruz’s personal faux-filibuster that included talk about green eggs and ham.

The Department of Health and Human Services posted on its blog Friday that enrollment has now surpassed the 3 million mark:

Since the beginning of open enrollment, millions of Americans are gaining access to health coverage-many for the very first time—thanks to the Affordable Care Act. The most recent data indicates that approximately 3.0 million people have now enrolled in a private health insurance plan through the Federal and State-based Marketplaces since October 1.

HHS also reports that 6.3 million people have been approved to enroll in Medicaid of CHIP in their state-run agencies.

Ironically, Obamacare was based on the health care plan Mitt Romney [Unlink] implemented in Massachusetts, when he was governor. Republicans have prattled on about formulating their own health care bill, but it’s been all talk and no substance.

Jason Easley noted in his Jan. 26 PoliticusUSA article the GOP is on the ropes over the success of Obamacare:

“Republicans are being proven wrong every single day on the ACA. The GOP is still going to try to sucker their base with talk of repeal during the 2014 election campaign, but they are in full retreat. There will be no repeal. It is unlikely the law will ever be replaced. The ACA is here to stay.”

The just-released numbers from HHS indicates that enrollment has turned a corner after the disastrous rollout out on Oct. 1, and the goal of 7 million enrollees by March 31 is very attainable.

Nonetheless, 2014 midterm elections will no doubt be saturated with phony rhetoric about how Obamacare is bad for the American people, that it kills jobs and should be gutted.

Writing in Bloomberg, Jonathan Bernstein believes the cornerstone of the GOP war on Obama and his evil health care law is a continued waste of time.

“It’s a question driven by the Republican demands for repeal of the entire law. But those demands are long past their expiration date; the status quo ante, for better or worse, no longer exists and hasn’t existed, really, for some time now,” wrote Bernstein in his piece. “In other words, the Republican ‘repeal’ position has become just as purely rhetorical as their (fictional) ‘replace’ bill has always been. The current Republican hope (or perhaps belief) is that the law will just collapse by itself, something that again is somewhere between wishful thinking and active self-delusion.”

History will judge whether or not the Affordable Healthcare Act will be a success, but critics say the repeal-Obamacare, Republican-front keeping the ruse alive for their 2014 campaign shouldn’t fool even the most dedicated conservative extremists.

Of course, that depends on how extreme and how dedicated, since some conservatives would believe Ted Cruz if he said the moon was made of green eggs and ham.

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Jean Williams has lived in the Seattle area for 34 years. Her environmental and wildlife articles have been published in magazines, newspapers and Internet publications, including Seattle Magazine, Critters USA and Neighborhood America.